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Hi! My name is Margot. My blog is about the things I love to do. That could be what I'm reading, places we visit, my family, food, or whatever else is happening. I hope you'll stay and visit a while.
Contact me by email: joyfullyretired (at) gmail (dot) com.

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"I read so I can live more than one life in more than one place." - Anne Tyler

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Road Report #6

We are heading into the home stretch of our cross-country road trip. Last week we reluctantly left the Tetons. (We just love that place.) We cut through Idaho and scooted over to Oregon. When we are on that road through southern Idaho we are actually on an ancient trail known as the Oregon Trail.

There is a wonderful Interpretive Center celebrating the trail outside Baker City, Oregon. For several years now we’ve been meaning to visit the Center. This time we took a couple of hours to “do” it. The Center is located up on a high hill and gives the visitor a wonderful view of this section of the trail. You can actually see for miles and miles.

Inside the center there is a life-like diorama. This starts the meandering exhibit that covers all the details of the trail from Independence, Missouri to Portland, Oregon. The exhibit curves round and round just like the real trail. There are photos, physical items used on the trip, and movies to enrich what we were learning. It’s one of the best-prepared Interpretive Centers we’ve seen. It’s run by the National Park Service.

I had to share this photo of a quilt at the Center. It commemorates the pioneer women who traveled the trail to a new homeland. Most of the women walked those thousands of miles on the Trail in addition to cooking, laundry, fire building, and child care.

After visiting the Interpretive Center we got back in the truck and went on to Portland. It’s always a pleasure to go there because this is where our granddaughters (and their parents) live.

Usually we complain about the excessive rain in Portland, but not this year. It was our pleasure to see all the green the excessive rain brings. The picture above was taken in front of our daughter’s townhouse. On this road trip we saw lots of brown desert, drought ridden corn fields and brown grass. Do you see how very green that lawn is? Such a joy to look at.

The girls each have sports they are involved in. Lou, seven-years-old, has discovered how much fun soccer can be. She loves racing up and down the field, and hates it if the coach rotates her out. She immediately starts begging to go back in the game!!

Both girls have taken swim lessons for quite a number of years, and love the water. This past summer was the first time Q, thirteen-years-old, swam competitively. And this visit was our first chance to see her swim in a year. We were amazed at how much she has improved and how good she is. She has a very strong kick, a good crawl and backstroke. She has the basics to be a very good swimmer.

Another reason we came to Portland at this time to help our daughter and her husband celebrate their wedding anniversary. We sent them out two different nights. This allowed my husband and I to indulge our granddaughters. When asked where they wanted to go for dinner – anywhere – they chose first Wendy’s and then Subway. Go figure!!

I found their choices funny, but then the girls are normally very healthy eaters and don’t go to fast food places except, I guess, when we come to visit. Since we seem to be the junk-food grandparents we took them to one more place. Two different people had recommended that, when in Portland, we should visit Voodoo Donuts, so we did.

This is the ultimate in excessive donuts. They are delicious but very wacky. They are wacky on purpose. Each donut has a name, has unusual ingredients, and most of them are quite colorful. I plan to tell you all the details of this Portland eatery in a future Weekend Cooking post.

Speaking of food, we have eaten extremely well during this road trip. But, there’s always a time to end a trip and head on home. It’s time to get back on sensible, healthy diets, and back to doing our regular activities – like visiting the blogs of all my blogging friends. I’ll report again next week and do a little wrap-up of our final leg of the trip.

8 comments to Road Report #6

It sounds like you had a wonderful trip and what a wonderful way to end it – with your precious granddaughters. When I was about Lou’s age, I chose Burger King for my birthday dinner and have yet to live it down.

I love that quilt, so different from the Amish quilts I see so often here in PA. I’m glad you had such a great trip and then saw your granddaughters. I’m a little taken aback that Q is so grown up already. Looking forward to your posts.

What an amazing trip in Oregon. I loved the photos and think it has to be on my list of places to visit for sure! I love that you and your hubby are the junk food grandparents!! HA!HAHAHAHA! Too cute! Those donuts are wacky!!! Your granddaughters are adorable and so unique!